SMART (Smart Monitoring and Rebooting Tool)

If you want an agent to monitor and control services, you'll need to get SMART.

Conclusion

SMART is an easy-to-install application (simply copying the
program), is much simpler to configure than Nagios (adding a new element
to monitor involves adding only one line in the configuration file), and
SMART is
flexible, allowing you to monitor any service or aspect of the system,
and it is very effective.

Our experience in a production environment with thousands of users
tells us that it's inevitable that we will reach some peak periods in which the
amount of requests received by a service goes beyond the capabilities
of the system, and response time grows in a dramatic manner. The fact
that the system detects this situation, before its own administrator,
and solves it in five minutes, is a great problem solver and
provides a perception of better service to users.

After two years of running SMART on about 15 servers, we can say
that its main contribution has been our peace of mind. It's wonderful
having a colleague who is checking that everything works
correctly 24/7 and who informs you about troubles after they already have been
solved (especially during the weekends).

Acknowledgements

SMART was created, developed, tested and enjoyed in the IT Department
of the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya. Vicente Sangrador and
Jordi Xavier Prat have collaborated on this project and encouraged me
to write this article.